


the lightning held the storm

by WingedQuill



Series: weather patterns [2]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Child Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Grief/Mourning, Hurt Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Mpreg, M/M, Nightmares, Past Character Death, This is big :'(( all around folks, Trans Character, Trans Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, we have this at least
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 11:20:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25968781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WingedQuill/pseuds/WingedQuill
Summary: This is what it is to love Geralt. An exercise in grieving people that Jaskier has never met.Geralt has a nightmare about his child surprise dying. Jaskier comforts him. Only it's not that simple, and Geralt's fear is not as irrational as Jaskier first assumed.(follow up to "the sun wed the storm" but works as a stand alone!)
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Past Geralt/Original Male Character
Series: weather patterns [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1823278
Comments: 13
Kudos: 198





	the lightning held the storm

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you once again to Thewonderfulthingaboutfish and MaliciousVegetarian for talking over this story with me and helping me get it hammered out. Y'all are awesome.
> 
> For those of you who haven't read the first fic in this verse and don't mind spoilers, the only context you need to know for this is that Geralt was married to another wolf witcher named Luka, who died in the sacking of Kaer Morhen. He told Jaskier about Luka after the djinncident, and the two of them have since started a romantic relationship.
> 
> So I know I said the next fic in this verse would be Lambert/Aiden, but I wound up reworking the plot for that story, and I needed this little interlude to provide some context. So enjoy this short, not-so-sweet oneshot about some more of Geralt's trauma, this time from Jaskier's POV. The next installment will be significantly longer and plottier, (and yes, will include Lambert/Aiden) and I for one can't wait.
> 
> CW for this story: Past pregnancy of a trans man, past child death, general sadness.

  
  


Jaskier has grown used to waking to Geralt’s frantic gasps, the weight of his arms slipping from Jaskier’s chest to curl around his own torso. Little sobs sometimes, bursting from his lips like he’s doing everything in his power to hold them back. Like he’s trained himself to cry quietly.

It tears something in half in Jaskier, when he sees Geralt like this. Maybe his heart. It feels like this is  _ supposed  _ to be heartbreak, like this is that yawning, aching, unhealable rift they talk about in all the songs. But you’re not supposed to hug someone, when they break your heart. You’re not supposed to put your lips against their ear and whisper that  _ it’s all gonna be okay, just breathe now, sweetheart.  _

But he does. Every time. 

And he’ll keep doing it until the air leaves his lungs or until Geralt stops crying in his sleep, and there’s nothing on Earth that could stop him.

So maybe it’s not heartbreak, he thinks, pressing his lips against Geralt’s cheek. Maybe it’s something else.

Geralt jerks in his arms, and his hands scrabble at Jaskier’s back, clenching tightly to the fabric of his nightshirt. Jaskier nuzzles his chin against Geralt’s shoulder and hums, low and soft, letting him feel the vibrations, the evidence that he’s alive.

The nightmares are always bad, but they’re the worst when Geralt wakes from them.

He strokes his fingers through Geralt’s hair, tugging lightly as he goes. He taps the fingers of his other hand against Geralt’s back, one at a time, following the bumpy curve of his spine. Little anchors to keep Geralt from flying off into the stormy waves of his thoughts. Slowly, Geralt’s gasps even out into shaky breaths. His hands uncurl from Jaskier’s shirt, his palms flattening out over his back. Jaskier continues his stroking and tapping and humming until he feels Geralt’s muscles relax from their dream-rigidity into exhausted bonelessness.

“You with me?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Geralt says, his voice hoarse with bitten back screams. And then, “sorry” like always.

“It’s alright,” Jaskier replies, like always. He wants to say  _ you have nothing to be sorry about,  _ but he knows by now that Geralt will never stop seeing his nightmares as a burden, and it’s better to try and assuage that guilt than to pretend it doesn’t exist.

“I thought I was getting better,” Geralt mumbles. He sighs, long and shuddering. “Haven’t had that nightmare in months.”

“Wanna tell me about it?”

He always asks this question, even when, like now, he’s certain that the answer will be  _ no.  _ Leaving the space open for Geralt to talk about it. Sometimes he does, narrating the whole dream from start to end, as cold and monotone as he can be. Sometimes he lets go of just a few words.  _ The trials  _ or  _ my mother  _ or  _ Luka. _

And sometimes he just shakes his head and curls closer into Jaskier, holding him until the sun rises, unable to fall back asleep.

Jaskier is sure that this is going to be one of those nights. More sure, as the question lingers and stretches in the air.

“Yes,” Geralt whispers, and Jaskier almost doesn’t catch it. “I do.”

He shifts against Jaskier, pressing his forehead into Jaskier’s shoulder, hiding his face in his chest. 

“Wanted to for a while,” he says. Because of course this nightmare isn’t just a nightmare. Of course it’s related to something in Geralt’s long and awful past.

Not for the first time, Jaskier wishes that time traveling spells were real. That he could fly decades back with a mug of hot tea and a sword, comforting Geralt and keeping him safe, stopping the nightmares before they even started. Not for the first time, Jaskier wishes that he could do more than hold together Geralt’s broken edges.

“You can talk about these things whenever you want,” he says, twirling a strand of Geralt’s hair around his finger. “Or never. You know that.”

_ You owe me nothing. _

“I know,” Geralt says. “But I think—I think I want to tell you about this. It’s the last really big thing you don’t know about me.”

And Geralt has given over his abusive mother, the horrors of a witcher’s training, what really happened in Blaviken, the sacking of Kaer Morhen, his fucking  _ murdered husband  _ for the gods’ sakes. The thought that there’s something else, another, worse secret that he couldn’t let go of in all these years—

Jaskier swallows, taps his fingers over Geralt’s back, and resolves not to cry until Geralt is done talking.

“Okay then,” he says. “Tell me.”

“I dreamed about my child surprise,” he says. Jaskier frowns. Not exactly what he was expecting.

“Are you worried for her?” he asks. “We could go back to Cintra if you want, check on her—”

“No,” Geralt snaps. And then, gentler: “no. I can’t. I—I keep seeing her dead. I keep seeing her body burning and  _ knowing  _ that it’s my fault.”

“That won’t make it real,” Jaskier says firmly. This is Geralt’s worst and biggest demon, coming home to roost on his back. The idea that he will kill everyone close to him, that his very presence in their lives will cause them to be struck down. “You would be a great father, Geralt, if you wanted to be, we could—”

Geralt shakes his head against Jaskier’s chest. He’s trembling, shivering all over like he’s waist-deep in a snowbank, despite the warm summer air.

“No,” he says. “No, I wouldn’t be, I—I’ve tried. Once.”

Jaskier’s breath freezes in his chest.

_ Oh no. _

He knows, almost before Geralt starts telling the story. A thousand tiny things are clicking into place, a thousand little pieces of Geralt that didn’t quite make sense before, but are dazzlingly clear now that he’s holding them the right way around.

_ Geralt, kneeling down in front of a young girl sobbing her heart out in the back of a monster’s cave. Coaxing her out with gentle, steady words, more practical than most people would use. “It’s dead now. It can’t hurt you. It can’t hurt anyone. But if you want this to be over, you need to be brave, alright?” No cooing, no baby talk. But if anything, that seemed to give the girl a certain kind of strength, the thought that a witcher needed her to be brave.  _

_ Geralt even smiled at her, when she stumbled to her feet. Not the bright, fake smile that Jaskier had given to more than enough children at more than enough performances, but a small, genuine thing.  _

_ “Great job,” he said, and led her out of the cave, keeping his body firmly between her and the dead monster. “Great job.” _

That was the first time Jaskier realized that Geralt is good with kids. Quite good. He listens to them, he knows how to talk to them when they’re scared or sad or hiding something. Jaskier knows he has a few drawings and clumsily-made toys tucked carefully away in one of his bags, gifts that he treasures more than gold.

But whenever Jaskier has tried to compliment Geralt on his talent—and it  _ is  _ a talent, and one which Jaskier  _ certainly  _ does not possess—Geralt always denies it. Says that he’s dreadful with children, that children hate him, that he doesn’t know what to do with them. All blatant lies.

And Jaskier had chalked it up to his usual monster complex, or Geralt trying to convince himself that he could never care for his child surprise, but—

“What happened?” he asks.

“Witchers are sterile,” Geralt murmurs. “Even ones like me—they don’t cut out our wombs, but the mutagens are enough to make us go barren.”

Jaskier hums in acknowledgement. He’s heard this tale before, and bristled at its injustice. Witchers and mages both, having their choices stripped away from them as easily as old paint off a wall. 

Geralt is quiet for a long moment. When he speaks again, it sounds like the words are being dragged out of him. Or like he’s forcing them out of himself, no matter how much they want to stay hidden behind his lips.

“But it didn’t—work. Not for us.”

Jaskier swallows. Closes his eyes.

The thousand strange pieces of Geralt fly together into a single, awful picture.

“They thought it had something to do with the extra mutations,” Geralt says. “Healing whatever damage the first round had done. But Luka and I—we—I fell pregnant. When I was eighteen.”

Geralt was Jaskier’s best friend long before he was his lover. Their history spans nineteen years. And Jaskier  _ knows,  _ as surely as he knew his own name when he stepped beyond the borders of Lettenhove for the first time, that Geralt would have introduced him to his child a long time ago.

If they were alive.

“I was terrified,” Geralt says, and his voice is crackling around the edges, and fuck.  _ Fuck.  _ “But I wanted him. I wanted him so  _ badly.” _

A son.

Geralt had a son.

“I’m sure you did,” Jaskier whispers, flattening out his hand and rubbing wide circles over Geralt’s back. His head is reeling, reeling nearly as badly as the world around him.  _ Fuck,  _ he really thought he knew everything, the whole, terrible story of Geralt’s life.

“We were excited, when we found out,” Geralt says. “Scared, but—we thought we could handle it. We really thought we could be parents, we could make a home with our child.”

An image flashes in Jaskier’s mind. Geralt, laughing and happy, in front of a warm fire in a tiny cottage. Another witcher sitting across from him—and his picture of Luka is solid, though probably wrong, filled in with the details that Geralt has given him over the years. A small boy with curly white hair, toddling unsteadily from one father to another.

Geralt could have had a family.

And  _ fuck,  _ all the times Jaskier had said “you’re good with kids, you’d be a wonderful father,” all the times he’d not-so-subtly encouraged him to go claim his child surprise—

He’d been reminding him of that loss. Every time.

“But then, six months in, I got sick. Really sick.”

Jaskier has had enough drinks with enough midwives to know what “really sick” entails in the course of a pregnancy. He squeezes Geralt tighter. Tighter. Turns his nose into his hair and breathes in the scent of him, all clean soap and the vaguely summery hair oil he likes. He’s alive. He’s healthy.

Though not without a cost.

“It was too late in the pregnancy to terminate it,” Geralt sighs. “So all we could do was wait. And I just got worse and worse and—when it was time, they had to cut him out of me.”

_ Jaskier, pressing his lips to each of Geralt’s scars in turn. Pausing when he reached one that cut across his belly, a shockingly neat line in comparison to the knotted masses of scar tissue that cover the rest of his torso. _

_ “You never gave me the story for this one,” he said, and Geralt sighed. _

_ “Another night, dandelion.” A promise. A plea. A similar tone in his voice to when Jaskier had first asked about the scar on his thigh. And Geralt had told him about that, eventually, when he was ready. Told him about Blaviken, Renfri, the broach on his sword. _

_ So Jaskier just smiled, squeezed Geralt’s hand, and turned his lips to safer territory.  _

He really should have fucking known.

“They tried to save him,” Geralt says, and there’s a familiar waver to his voice, a familiar brokenness. He sounds like he did that night around the campfire, after the djinn. The night he first told him about Luka. 

This is what it is to love Geralt. An exercise in grieving people that Jaskier has never met.

“I never even got to hold him,” Geralt whispers, and that sentence is what finally tips him over into tears. “I never got to hold him, and he still fucking  _ broke me.” _

Jaskier holds this new bit of grief against his heart, as he holds Geralt’s trembling body against his chest. There will be time to turn it over later. Time to examine it later, and figure out how it fits inside his life. 

For now, he will hold Geralt until he falls back asleep, and then he will let himself cry. 

***

The next morning, they sit side by side on the lumpy mattress of the inn’s bed, their eyes ringed with identical dark circles, and watch the sunrise. Jaskier keeps Geralt pulled snug against him, and he toys with a strand of Geralt’s hair.

“Did he have a name?” he asks.

“Aras,” Geralt says. His voice is almost reverent. Like he’s murmuring the name of a god. 

_ Renfri. Luka. Aras.  _

He repeats the names to himself and presses a kiss into Geralt’s temple.


End file.
